D&D General It's Session Zero! How Much Backstory Do You Give Your Character?

[payn]

I'm "a bit" but almost definitely, whether I write down anything or not, a sketch/drawing of them is definitely going to be done by/for session zero.

I'm definitely more interested in an aesethic look of my PC than a backstory.

 

[Azzy]

It depends on the game and GM. Some GMs ask for more because they want to weave the characters' history in. Others are just doing action, and the present day is what matters.

If I were in a Game of Thrones game, lots of backstory.

If I were in a Walking Dead game, not so much.

Probably the longest I wrote was less a backstory and more a 1-page tone poem, because the GM was running Pathfinder's Strange Aeons and told us we'd wake up with amnesia. He told us we could have backstories we made ourselves that we would remember during the game, but that there would be an important gap where secret stuff would happen.

I asked if I could play a genuine amnesiac, and I'd trust him to fill in a bunch of details, but my general idea was that I was a changeling left by a hag, but with a psychic talent that linked me to the child I was replacing, and that that child was somehow a mystical, reincarnating soul with multiple iterations of herself throughout history, and I was just someone pretending to be her, like an actress reciting lines for a biographical play, taking the place of the real person.

So yeah, long backstory for an amnesiac.

This pretty much. It really depends on the DM, the game, the character, and such. With a good DM that does more than just combat encounters, I tend to create characters with more depth.

 

[overgeeked]

A few sentences at most. A couple of goals, too. Any more than that is a waste. And that’s only after they’ve survived a few adventures.

 

[Distracted DM]

When I was young and solely a player, I wrote long backstories that were basically just for me- though I didn't know that at the time.
As I got older and moved further over to GMing, I cared less and less about what happened to a character before gameplay.

I'll have a sentence or two and figure out the character from there- and more often than not when players hand me page-long backstories I am unlikely to read them... I tell them this now, though, after receiving too many "I am a self-exiled warlord-prince that stands to inherent an army when I choose to return to my people."

And usually they have any conflict already wrapped up in them so the character isn't saddled with any possible exploits that I could've used if I wanted to "my elf bargained her soul to a demon for power to stop her parents from being killed, and then she did save her parents and then I gave the demon the would-be murderers soul and he was happy with that so now I'm an adventurer."
... It would have been much more usable if the fiend was still promised your soul.

 

[overgeeked]

When I was young and solely a player, I wrote long backstories that were basically just for me- though I didn't know that at the time.
As I got older and moved further over to GMing, I cared less and less about what happened to a character before gameplay.

I'll have a sentence or two and figure out the character from there- and more often than not when players hand me page-long backstories I am unlikely to read them... I tell them this now, though, after receiving too many "I am a self-exiled warlord-prince that stands to inherent an army when I choose to return to my people."

And usually they have any conflict already wrapped up in them so the character isn't saddled with any possible exploits that I could've used if I wanted to "my elf bargained her soul to a demon for power to stop her parents from being killed, and then she did save her parents and then I gave the demon the would-be murderers soul and he was happy with that so now I'm an adventurer."
... It would have been much more usable if the fiend was still promised your soul.

Exactly. What matters most is what happens during play. This is why I love the idea of the funnel. The group has a shared backstory to create more connected characters who’ve actually gone through some crap together and survived. Way more engaging than dozens of pages of let me tell you how cool my character is.

 

[Distracted DM]

Exactly. What matters most is what happens during play. This is why I love the idea of the funnel. The group has a shared backstory to create more connected characters who’ve actually gone through some crap together and survived. Way more engaging than dozens of pages of let me tell you how cool my character is.

I also like games that have tools to create a little shared backstory at a session 0. I think Fantasy Age might do that? I remember ?Titansgrave? had something like that and I always thought it was a cool part of character creation.

 

[payn]

I also like games that have tools to create a little shared backstory at a session 0. I think Fantasy Age might do that? I remember ?Titansgrave? had something like that and I always thought it was a cool part of character creation.

Traveller has some of this that works great.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm definitely more interested in an aesethic look of my PC than a backstory.

Oh man, me too. Long before I even roll up stats, I start out with the appearance and aesthetic.

I backed the HeroForge kickstarter way back in the day when they were first starting out, so I have access to all of the bells and whistles, not just order a custom mini. Like my next character, Nivia, the tiefling druid.

First I play around with the model until I'm happy with it:

Then I add some color...

Then generate a token Roll20...

There. NOW I'm ready to actually create the character.

 

[overgeeked]

I also like games that have tools to create a little shared backstory at a session 0. I think Fantasy Age might do that? I remember ?Titansgrave? had something like that and I always thought it was a cool part of character creation.

Absolutely. Fate has something similar. I like those, too. But nothing beats a funnel for the sheer visceral thrill. You remember those moments. They connect you more and cement those connections more than “Tony saved my life during the War” ever would.

 

[Distracted DM]

Absolutely. Fate has something similar. I like those, too. But nothing beats a funnel for the sheer visceral thrill. You remember those moments. They connect you more and cement those connections more than “Tony saved my life during the War” ever would.

The issue that I've run into with the funnel, having run three of them now, is that some players will do everything they can to protect their high stat-roll characters- sometimes to the extent of not participating in fights etc. SO I have to almost unrealistically target them, or throw in stuff that attacks the rear etc. but it hasn't disabused them of that behavior.